Thursday, May 26, 2005

Fride Chicken and other wisdom

India is a rich source for those individuals looking to bring out a book comprised solely of funny signboards seen all around this great country. People like me, for instance. Okay, okay, so it was my father’s idea. But if your progeny doesn’t have a right to steal your intellectual property, who does? (I have, on various occasions, helped myself to my father’s socks, his cologne, pencils, sweaters, and tequila. Etc.)Anyway, they are everywhere. The signboards, I mean. You will soon start to appreciate the Indian ingenuity in conveying messages in the Queen’s language with such flair as to transform it altogether.Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said that to always spell a word the same way means that you lack imagination? Apparently we are a nation overflowing with the stuff. How else would you explain “Chines Food”, “Chinees Food,” “Chinnes Food,” and, doing away with the bother and complication, “China Food”? Or, not wanting to go exotic, maybe you would like some simple “Fride Chicken.”For those who have suffered untold headaches and red eyes whilst driving behind those yellow and black three-wheeled nightmares we fondly call “Autos”, you have no doubt read those signs at the back saying primly, (displaying a fine sense of irony) “Please Do Not Pollut the Air.”If you have a big house with beautiful pristine walls, of course you don’t want them spoiled. So what do you do? One family hit upon an idea. They scrawled, in red paint, right across the wall, “Do Not Urinate.”What? Not ever? Not even in my own bathroom???But even these pale in comparison to one I saw a long time ago on a small shop in Kerala. The black and white painted sign said, simply, “Fresh Chips Real Estate.” Eh? Maybe a missing comma would explain this one? Still, a business which handles such diverse areas as fresh chips and real estate is not to be taken lightly.And the last, as succinct a piece of advice as “Eat your Vegetables,” I saw this painted on the side of a staircase leading up to a narrow doorway: “Be Careful of Your Head.” Indeed.